


The Devil's Harvest

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: dw-allsorts, Community: hc_bingo, Episode: s07e14 The Name of the Doctor, Gen, Multi-Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 22:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2484818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara's alone in a wood in the middle of the night, but there's something else out there...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Harvest

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "The Devil's Harvest" at dw_allsorts and also for the square "deals with demons" at hc_bingo.

“Great idea,” Clara muttered to herself. “Prove them all wrong; prove there’s nothing weird in the woods, why not? Alone. In the dark. Brilliant.”

She pulled her coat closer and carried on walking. Yesterday, when some of the locals had been telling stories about the curse of the Black Wood and the Devil’s Harvest, she and her friend Henrietta had decided to demonstrate how unimpressed they were by some old legend they presumably dragged out for all the tourists by going out there tonight – on the night of the Devil’s Harvest itself. The devil seemed to have been partial to this particular date for at least one hundred and fifty years or so, and here it was again, the twenty-fifth of September, 1936, and Clara Oswald and her friend were going to give the tale the lie. 

It was just that out in the wood, it all seemed so different. Henrietta had backed out once they got here, but Clara had carried on, determined to see it through. A walk through what was barely a wood, more like a copse, and Henrietta to meet her back at the cottage – it was a doddle, wasn’t it? It wasn’t even all that late yet, not quite nine o’clock – nowhere near the witching hour. But there were noises all around that she couldn’t quite rationalise out as woodland creatures doing, well, whatever it was woodland creatures did. There was a measured quality to the rustling sound that seemed to follow her around and it stopped whenever she did. It was unnerving.

Thinking of that, she tried again to prove it wasn’t true, and swung around abruptly, shining the torch behind her. This time she saw it – something fleeing out of the light, too quick to register fully, but definitely not a shadow or a figment of her imagination.

“Oh, no,” she said. “There _is_ something here!”

“Well, yes. And more than one, I should think,” said an unfamiliar voice from behind her.

Clara yelled out, and swung back around, dropping the torch in her alarm. The light went out, and she had to dive down and scrabble about in the leaves and stones and dirt with shaking hands until she got it back and shone it upwards at the newcomer. And blinked in shock. “Well, you don’t go in for camouflage, do you?” she said. She wasn’t sure exactly what he was wearing, but he didn’t seem to have left out any colours of the rainbow.

“I’m the Doctor,” he said, ignoring her comment on his outfit, and holding out his hand to help her up. “And you are?”

She stepped back again. “I’m Clara. Was that you, playing some kind of trick?”

“Regrettably, no,” he said, and then pulled her to one side, gripping her arm. “Turn that light off.”

“Why?”

“If you turn it off, you’ll see.”

She should have argued, she supposed. After all, she was wandering about alone at night in a wood and she’d happened on a strange man – a _very_ strange man, judging by his ridiculous coat of many colours – so taking his orders wasn’t sensible. However, there was something about him, and she turned the torch off before she’d even finished objecting to the idea in her mind.

“Now,” he said, still keeping hold of her, but lightly, more supporting than restraining. “Just to your left – look now –”

Clara opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t see anything, but now that her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, she could see shapes moving, shadows climbing up and down the nearest tree. There was a faint glow from behind them that she couldn’t explain, either, but then it faded and she blinked again in blackness, thoroughly unnerved.

“I suggest,” the Doctor murmured in her ear, “a strategic retreat.”

She nodded dumbly, and followed him out, hanging onto his hand, since he seemed to be able to find his way forward even without the torch.

 

“Okay,” she said, once they were outside of the woods again. “So, there is something lurking in there after all.”

“But not the devil, I assure you.”

Clara folded her arms. “I didn’t think it was. Anyway, what were you doing?”

“That’s immaterial. You should be grateful you met me, or goodness only knows what might have happened to you.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, right. Consider me suitably awed or whatever –”

“Are you _sure_ you’re from this time period, young lady?”

She blinked. “What kind of question is that? No, wait, make that what kind of lunatic are you? Should I be screaming?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” he said, giving her a reproachful look. “Not with those creatures in there. We don’t want to catch their attention, do we? Or anybody else’s for that matter.”

Clara couldn’t argue with that. She leant against the wooden stile behind her, and watched him warily. “So, what were those things?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never come across that species before. Fascinating, isn’t it? But whatever they are, they are unquestionably alien and indubitably dangerous.”

“Alien?” said Clara.

“You’ve read your H. G. Wells, haven’t you?”

Clara shrugged. “No, actually.”

“No?” said the Doctor, sounding more shocked than he had at finding alien beings hiding in an English wood. “Then, what, pray did you waste your time reading?”

Clara glared back at him. “None of your business. Lots of things.” Which hadn’t all been called things like _Cecily Holds The Fort_ , or _Daisy Dives In_ , or _Angela, Head Girl_ , but quite a lot of them had. Well, they had plenty of handy tips about creeping out after dark at night with a torch; you couldn’t argue with that. “You know. The Brontës, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the usual. None of them had any aliens in.”

“Ha,” said the Doctor. “That’s all you know! Jane in particular based one character on – well, let’s not get into that, shall we? What matters now is those creatures in there. They’ve been here for a very long time, I’d say, from what I observed before somebody came blundering in waving a torch about at the wrong moment. I wonder how long?”

“Since at least 1508,” Clara said, and managed not to sound too smug about it. Mostly.

The Doctor stared at her. “How did you know that?”

“I said, didn’t I? I read the local history stuff. The first mention of strange happenings in the wood is 1508. The next recorded incident was apparently something like 1593, when it was mentioned in the burial register that three men had been taken by the Devil’s Harvest. And there was a very lurid Eighteenth Century version of the tale. Or at least, what some Victorian bloke with an over-active imagination wanted to claim was an Eighteenth Century version. Could go either way.”

The Doctor gave her a small smile. “Oh, so you do read _some_ useful things, then?”

“Obviously.”

“And yet, having acquainted yourself with these lurid tales, you still thought it was a good idea to wander around here in the middle of the night?”

Clara sighed. “I thought they were just trying to scare the ignorant city girl with their local goblin story. It was a dare to prove them wrong. My friend was supposed to be here, too, but she – well, she changed her mind. I didn’t.”

“So I see,” said the Doctor. 

She gave him an apologetic smile. “I brought a torch? And useful historical reading, right? Anyway, what are you doing wandering about in the middle of the wood on a dark night? Don’t tell me you got dared, too.”

“What a suggestion,” said the Doctor. “No. I, as it happens, was conducting a careful scientific investigation of a serious matter.”

“You reckon it’s true, then? That some gobliny thing comes out and kills people, and leaves them dead, their internal organs scattered about, and a big fat look of horror on their lifeless faces?”

“You weren’t joking about the lurid part, were you?” said the Doctor. “It sounds all too likely, judging by what we’ve just seen, I’m afraid. Now, I suggest you return to wherever it was you came from and let me sort the matter out.”

Clara folded her arms. “ _We’ll_ sort the matter out.”

“This could be extremely dangerous – you do realise that, don’t you?”

She gave him a smile. “Exactly. You’ll need back up. And, anyway, which one of us thought to bring a torch?”

Why, Clara asked herself, did she have to do these things? It was the same as the dare. She should have more sense, but somehow, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Besides, the Doctor might have absolutely no dress sense, but he seemed to know what he was doing. She felt as if somehow she’d be bound to be all right if she kept close to him.

 

The Doctor seemed to have picked up pocketfuls of oddments on his way into and out of the forest and now he spent a while testing them out, although not very scientifically, in Clara’s inexpert opinion. He didn’t even pull out a magnifying glass; he just squinted at various small stones, twigs, and leaves in the light of the torch, listened to some of them, sniffing others, and even tasting some of them.

“Conclusions?” she asked eventually.

He held out one stone to her. Even she could see that it was unusual. It had odd marks ground into it and it was a weird blueish colour. It hummed in her hand. “This is alien?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Possibly part of a machine, I’d say. Tell me, that book of yours – were there any later accounts like that – with entrails, I mean?”

Clara shrugged. “No. The rest were all your typical ghost stories, far as I could see. Local farmers found dead without a mark on them, hair as white as snow, and that trade mark look of horror etched across their faces. All claimed by the devil as part of his annual harvest, blah blah blah.”

“Were they really all farmers?”

“What? No. Labourers, passing housemaids, even a curate, I think. I didn’t actually take notes. Definitely no more entrails.”

The Doctor took the stone back from her. “Hmm. Perhaps there’s more truth in legend than you’d expect, then. You see, a creature unfamiliar with the human anatomy might perhaps engage in some dissection on the first attempt or two, but wouldn’t need to do so again, once it knew what it was looking for – or dismissing most of the organic matter as not being of use. Just energy.”

“Energy?” Clara wrinkled her nose. “You can’t just take energy, can you? Well, maybe, but not like a doctor removing your appendix.”

The Doctor shrugged. “All sorts of matter can be converted into energy. Your body does it with food, after all. So another species might well have ways of converting you into energy. It’s surprising what power there can be in one living being, you know. And that matches with the tales of aging, never finding so much as a mark – not much to show for it once something’s sucked the life force right out of you.”

“But why?” said Clara. “For food – or what?”

The Doctor looked at her. “Well, I can’t be sure, of course. It could be, but I suspect in this case they want it for their repairs. Most likely to power their ship, possibly some other function. Not ideal for them, either, but when you’re desperate and in a strange place, you’ll take whatever you can find.”

“Oh, so that makes it all right then, does it?”

He dusted himself down and got to his feet. “No, it most emphatically does not!”

“So we stop them, right? But how?”

“I was thinking,” said the Doctor, “that we might go back and ask them politely if they wouldn’t mind desisting from murdering other living beings.”

“You think they’ll listen?”

He smiled at her. “They might if I offer them an alternative power source.”

“And what,” asked Clara, “if they’re just not very friendly?”

He led the way back into the woods. “That’s when it starts to get interesting!”

 

They had nearly reached the spot where they’d glimpsed the strange creatures earlier, when Clara tugged at the Doctor’s coat, still not feeling convinced by his plan. 

“Isn’t four hundred years long enough for someone to work out a less gruesome power source?

The Doctor halted so that she walked into him. “Yes, true. I agree, but we have to try.” Then he leant back a little, nearer to her now. “You don’t have to be here, Clara. I did say.”

Clara set her mouth into a line. “I’m staying. This was my adventure before you turned up and took over.”

“Very well, then,” said the Doctor. “If you get harvested by the devil, I did try to warn you.”

“Noted,” Clara said, and shivered. Really, why she was so insistent on being out in the dark and cold to face unknown danger, she wasn’t sure. “Anyway, someone’s got to make sure you don’t get eaten by the thingumies.”

The Doctor turned his head towards her. “Now, turn that torch off again.”

Clara did as she was told, and they edged slowly along the last few metres. The Doctor didn’t seem too bad at finding the way forward, so she hung onto his coat and followed in his wake. 

Then, suddenly, she saw the same strange glow again, and the creatures slipping up and down the trees nearest to them. Clara tightened her hold on the torch. Whatever they were, if they came any nearer, they were getting a wallop with it.

The Doctor stepped forward, coughed dramatically for attention, and launched into a speech about how he could help them find an alternative power source, possibly even help repair their space ship, when one of the creatures interrupted him with a shriek – and suddenly the heart of the wood was flooded with white light.

Clara gasped out and turned away from the unexpected brightness, then gradually looked around again, blinking in the light. As she adjusted to it, she could see it wasn’t merely light; it was a strand or ray of light that stretched between one of the creatures and the Doctor.

“No, no,” she said, under her breath, “that can’t be good!” She drew in her breath, and threw the torch at the creature. The light died away again, at least momentarily, so she grabbed at the Doctor’s arm, and dragged him away.

 

“Well done,” the Doctor said, once they were near the edge of the woods again. He sounded slightly breathless still, and she didn’t think it was from the running. “You showed great presence of mind and – er –”

He collapsed.

“Oh, no,” said Clara, and crouched down beside him, leaves and dirt catching on her coat and thick skirt and tights. “Doctor!”

“Just a bit light-headed,” he said. “Did everything move just then?” 

Clara surveyed him, her head tilted slightly and a rueful look on her face. “Oh, _Doctor_ ,” she said, and the first inkling of what she was, who he was, what they were both doing here stole into her mind.

Behind her, she heard the sound of the leaves rustling in the trees. She’d have liked to think it was the wind, but she knew it wasn’t. The creatures were coming after them. She looked up. She wasn’t that far from the road again now, but there was no way in hell she could drag the Doctor back to the fence and the stile, let alone over it. And if she left him, he’d be one more victim for the local legends, and she couldn’t have that.

She closed her eyes, and thought she was falling. ( _I don’t know where I am!_ ) There was a suddenly clarity of knowledge that filled her, simultaneously enlightening and confusing. The Clara who read too many Girls’ Own books and longed for something more exciting in her life mingled with a Clara from the future who had only one reason for being here, tangled in the Doctor’s timeline. There were so many fallen leaves in the wood. So many.

“Doctor!” she said again, and shook him, but he seemed to have lost consciousness. “What did it do to you?” she asked, more rhetorically than in expectation of an answer. And what, she thought in sudden fear, if she’d got here too late this time?

Then she thought about falling, about the confusion, the few things that did make sense, and about a creature that wanted energy to feed on or to use, and she stood up and swung around to face it.

“You!” she yelled at it. “Yes, you! Creepy goblin thingumies!”

The leader turned, and she caught her breath, and took a step back under the intensity of its gaze.

“Yes,” she said, and at least one of the Clara seemed to have an instinct for what she was doing. She just hoped it was the right one. “That’s it. Come closer. Take a good look at me. You want an energy source? Well, use me. I’m more than you could ever want. I’m the Impossible Girl, in a thousand places and times all at once. Take me, not the Doctor!”

How much it understood, she couldn’t be sure, but it continued to examine her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, and then it reached out to her. The beam of light hit her, and she felt it, tearing into her being, turning matter into energy, just like the Doctor had said. It was extracting the life force from her, and it hurt, as if it was ripping it out through her skin. It was worse than being caught in the timestream. There she was a leaf, blown on the wind; here she was unquestionably flesh and blood, only less and less so with every second.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. She wasn’t sure why, couldn’t see. It was too late, she could tell, but the other Clara in her head knew that was part of the plan; that was what always happened. She dropped to the ground, her head against a tree root, lying amongst the piles of other dead leaves.

“Clara,” said the Doctor, taking hold of her. She closed her eyes and let herself lean against him. He was, no matter what he looked like, always the Doctor.

“How?” she murmured.

He looked down at her. “I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I? Whatever it found in you, it didn’t know how to deal with it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was something temporal that had upset it. All it took then was one stone thrown with my customary accuracy and – bam!”

“Urgh,” she said, fainter still. “Messy.”

The Doctor sighed. “No – the explosion was pure energy – took out the other two with it. More like a particularly good firework. Clara?”

She opened her eyes. It was an effort. “Yes?”

“We haven’t met before, have we?”

She felt herself sliding back into the timestream. That hurt too, though not as badly. (It had happened so many times before already. Had happened, will happen, is happening.) She managed a small smile. “Yes,” she said. “And no. Depends how you look at it.”

“I should have stopped you,” he said.

Clara tried to shake her head at the note of distress in his voice, but she only had the same last words left; the way it always was. “Run,” she said, with the last of this Clara. “Run, you clever boy – and remember.”

And then she was falling again, spinning in the timestream. She was lost once more; lost in all the right places.


End file.
